The Turn of Media Convergence from the Perspective of Marx’s Theory of Spiritual Intercourse

Over the past decade or more, traditional media have explored media convergence with unremitting effort, from organizational structure and content format to publishing platforms and practitioner skills. Yet, whether in terms of market returns or communication effects, there have always been aspects that fall short of expectations. How traditional media can break through the encirclement in the internet era and truly reach the audience has become a concern for both the news industry and academia. Marx’s theory of spiritual intercourse may offer a way of thinking for the practice of media convergence in traditional media.

过去十多年，传统媒体在媒介融合探索上可谓上下求索、孜孜不倦，从组织架构、内容形式到发布平台、从业者技能等都进行了探索与创新。然而，无论是市场回报还是传播效果方面，总有些不尽如人意的地方。传统媒体究竟如何才能在互联网时代突出重围，真正抵达受众，成为新闻业界与学界关心的问题之一。而马克思精神交往理论或能为传统媒体的媒介融合实践提供思路。

The View of Journalism as Spiritual Intercourse

作为精神交往的新闻观

Marx believed that only with intercourse can social relations arise and a kind of social cohesion take shape. Intercourse is the starting point of social relations and also their endpoint. Marx did not directly define “intercourse,” but from the content of his exposition, Marx’s “intercourse” has a very broad connotation, encompassing not only the relationship between humans and nature but also the material intercourse and spiritual intercourse between people. In Marx’s view, spiritual intercourse is a direct product of material production, but it is not merely a simple reflection of material production; together with material intercourse, it constitutes the unfolding part of human life. Starting from this viewpoint, we believe that journalistic activity is not only the transmission of information and an important form of spiritual intercourse, but also an emotional resonance, an interaction of values, and an exchange of ideas and viewpoints.

马克思认为，有了交往才能产生社会关系，才能形成一种社会凝聚力。交往是社会关系的起点，也是社会关系的落脚点。马克思并没有直接给“交往”下定义，但从其阐述内容看，马克思的“交往”内涵十分宽泛，不仅涵盖人与自然的关系，还包括人与人的物质交往和精神交往。在马克思看来，精神交往是物质生产的直接产物，但又不仅仅是物质生产的简单反映，它和物质交往一起构成了人生命的展开部分。从这一观点出发，我们认为，新闻活动不仅是信息的传递、精神交往的重要形式之一，更是一种情感的共鸣、价值观念的互动和思想观点的交流。

Some scholars have proposed that in the process of spiritual intercourse, Marx greatly valued the expression of people’s natural instincts, believing that spiritual intercourse is a free manifestation of life. If intercourse is driven by external necessity, then the process of intercourse will be distorted to varying degrees. Therefore, from the perspective of journalism as spiritual intercourse, there are no “transmitters” and “audiences” in the sense of subject and object; instead, equality, understanding, and interaction should be the core values. This provides a scientific guide for the practice of news media. At the present moment of fully pursuing media convergence, the focus of practice might shift from platform construction based on material production to equal, understanding-based interactive action between people grounded in spiritual intercourse.

有学者提出，在精神交往过程中，马克思十分珍视人自然天性的发挥，认为精神交往是自由的生命体现，如果交往是迫于外在的需要，那么交往过程就会受到不同程度的扭曲。因此，作为精神交往的新闻观，不存在主客体意义上的“传者”与“受众”，而是应以平等、理解、交互为核心价值理念，这为新闻媒体实践提供了科学指南。在全力进行媒介融合的当下，其实践重点或可从基于物质生产的平台建设转向基于精神交往的人与人平等、理解式的交互行动。

Journalistic Practice in Line with the Theory of Intercourse

符合交往理论的新闻实践

With the development of the internet, the communication environment and social forms have undergone profound changes. The path of media convergence development for traditional media has mainly revolved around the construction of technological platforms, from the initial integration of newspapers and the internet to all-media editing and gathering; traditional media have been chasing the pace of internet technology development. From the perspective of Marx’s theory of spiritual intercourse, solving the problem of technological platforms only achieves the arrival of information at the level of material production; it does not mean that “genuine feeling” of “full intercourse” has been formed in terms of spiritual intercourse. Marx believed that material production in practice, and even practice itself, can only unfold in the process of intercourse.

伴随互联网的发展，传播环境和社会形态经历了深刻变革。传统媒体的媒介融合发展道路主要围绕技术平台的搭建展开，从最初的报网融合到全媒体采编，传统媒体一直在追赶互联网技术发展的脚步。从马克思精神交往理论角度来看，技术平台问题的解决只是在物质生产层面的信息抵达，并不意味着在精神交往方面形成了“充分交往”的“真情”。马克思认为，实践中的物质生产乃至实践本身，都只有在交往过程中才能得以展开。

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that history is the best textbook and also the best sobering agent. [1] Reviewing the history of newspaper running by the Communist Party of China, it can be found that our Party has very successful historical experience in interacting with the masses. During the period of the New Democratic Revolution, the reason why the Communist Party of China was able to maximize the role of Party newspapers and journals under extremely poor material conditions and extremely harsh struggle environments, and win the battle of public opinion propaganda, was that the Communist Party of China at that time did not regard newspaper editing and gathering as an isolated process, nor did it regard the distribution of newspapers to subscribers as the end of the circulation work. The journalistic practice activities of that time were accompanied by a broad and deep process of spiritual intercourse with the masses. For example, the

习近平总书记指出，历史是最好的教科书，也是最好的清醒剂。回顾中国共产党的办报史可以发现，我们党在与群众交往方面有着非常成功的历史经验。新民主主义革命时期，中国共产党之所以能在物质条件极其匮乏、斗争环境极其恶劣的情况下，将党报党刊的作用发挥到最大，打赢舆论宣传战，就是因为当时的中国共产党没有将报纸采编视为孤立的过程，也没有将报纸发放到订户手中视为发行工作的结束，当时的新闻实践活动伴随着广泛而深入的与群众精神交往的过程。例如，工农通讯员制度确保了编读沟通渠道的畅通，活跃在基层的读报小组用人际传播的工作方式，把党报发行至最广袤的田间地头。如此一来，群众在情感、价值和观念上就与党报紧紧联结在了一起。

To this day, how the integrated-media products of traditional media can gain the trust of the masses remains the key to the survival and development of traditional media. However, the resolution of this issue cannot rely entirely on the technological iteration of the Internet; rather, it should achieve consensus with the masses through emotional exchange, value sharing, and conceptual communication.

时至今日，传统媒体的融媒体产品如何能获得群众的信赖，仍然是传统媒体生存与发展的关键。但这一问题的解决并不能完全依赖互联网的技术更迭，而是应通过情感交流、价值共享和观念互通与群众达成共识。

The Practical Path of Media Convergence

媒介融合的实践路径

First, grasp the state of human existence and understand the urgent difficulties and concerns of the masses. Marx believed that intercourse should take “the human being” as its premise, and that ideal intercourse should be such that “the essence of the human being constitutes the bond by which we produce for one another.” On the basis of Marx’s theory of spiritual intercourse, some scholars have further elaborated a behavioral theory of spiritual intercourse, arguing that communicative activity aimed at reaching understanding is the most basic and most important activity. The news products of media convergence cannot stop at the surface of Internet technology and textual narrative strategies; rather, they should penetrate people’s lives. Through in-depth investigation and interviews, they should grasp people’s real living conditions, understand their joys and sorrows, and especially face up to the masses’ difficulties and challenges, soothe their emotions, and meet their needs, thereby producing media content that resonates with the masses. Otherwise, relying solely on technological conditions or completely submitting to the logic of traffic, with a single-minded focus on creating blockbuster products, is not a long-term strategy for the integrated-media development of traditional media. The urgent task for traditional media to break through their predicament should shift from building an “Internet of interconnection” to building a “network of popular sentiment,” producing media products capable of spiritual intercourse with the masses.

一是把握人的生存状态，理解群众的急难愁盼问题。马克思认为，交往应以“人”为前提，理想的交往应该是“人的本质构成了我们彼此为对方进行生产的纽带”。在马克思精神交往理论的基础上，有学者进一步阐释了精神交往的行为理论，认为以达到理解为目的的交往活动是最基本、最重要的活动。媒介融合的新闻产品不能停留在互联网技术和文本叙事策略的表象上，而应深入人们的生活，通过深入的调查和采访，体会人们的真实生活状态，理解他们的喜怒哀乐，尤其要正视群众的困境与挑战，抚慰人们的情感，满足人们的需求，从而生产出让群众产生共鸣的媒介内容。否则，只依赖技术条件或完全服从于流量逻辑，一心打造爆款产品，并不是传统媒体媒介融合发展的长久之计。传统媒体发展破局的当务之急，应从建设“互联”网转向建设“民心”网，生产出能与群众进行精神交往的媒介产品。

Second, root intercourse in the most basic social relationship networks. Marx pointed out that “people establish corresponding social relations in accordance with the development of their material production; it is these same people who, in accordance with their social relations, create corresponding principles, ideas, and categories.” Therefore, the logical starting point of intercourse is that both parties are situated within the same social relationship network. Some scholars argue that people within the same social relationship network naturally possess “communicative competence”; they “are more likely to express something understandable, are more likely to make themselves understandable, and are more likely to reach mutual understanding or consensus with others.”

二是将交往扎根于最基层的社会关系网中。马克思指出，“人们按照自己的物质生产的发展建立相应的社会关系，正是这些人又按照自己的社会关系创造了相应的原理、观念和范畴”。因此，交往的逻辑起点是双方同处一个社交关系网。有学者认为，同一个社交关系网中的人，天然具有“交往性资质”，他们“一来更容易说出某种可理解的东西，二是更容易使自己成为可理解的，三则更容易与他人达成相互理解或共识”。

Today, the Internet era is an era of nodal communication. Against the backdrop of the network society, the integrated-media products of traditional media are, within the industrial landscape, merely one platform among many, one social connection point. They are no different from other social connection points; they do not inherently possess an advantage in intercourse simply because the participants are professional news producers. From the perspective of social relationship networks, the integrated-media products of traditional media and the masses do not share the “communicative competence” of the same social relationship network; indeed, they face the disadvantage of being easily alienated. In contrast, other social nodes are rooted in existing social relationship networks and, to a certain extent, possess a natural “communicative competence.” For them, as long as they master certain communication technologies, they can form equal, understanding-based spiritual intercourse relationships with their interactive objects through media. This is also an important reason for the rapid development of online self-media in recent years.

如今，互联网时代是节点式传播的时代。在网络社会的大背景下，传统媒体的融媒体产品在产业形态中仅仅是众多平台之一、一个社会连接点而已。它与其他社会连接点并无二致，并不会因为参与者是专业的新闻制作者就天然拥有交往的优势。从社会关系网的角度来看，传统媒体的融媒体产品与群众之间不具有同一个社交关系网的“交往性资质”，还存在容易被疏离的劣势。与之相反的是，其他社会节点扎根原有的社会关系网，一定程度上拥有天然的“交往性资质”。对他们而言，只要掌握一定的传播技术，就可以通过媒介与交互对象形成平等、理解的精神交往关系，这也是近年来网络自媒体发展迅速的重要原因。

This means that, whether engaged in multimedia production or resource integration, if the news industry, as a node in the social relationship network, fails to follow the action principles of spiritual intercourse and fails to root its intercourse with the masses in the basic social relationship networks, it will be unable to participate in the social communication system and unable to achieve high-quality development of the news industry. Therefore, in the Internet era, traditional media must focus on the needs of news and public opinion work, attach importance to intercourse with various social nodes, truly embed the news enterprise into the social relationship network, and continuously make new contributions to the development of the Party’s propaganda, ideology, and cultural work.

这就意味着，无论是进行多媒体生产还是资源整合，新闻业作为社会关系网络中的一个节点，如果不能遵从精神交往的行动原则，不能将与群众的交往扎根于基层社会关系网中，将无法参与社会沟通系统，无法实现新闻业的高质量发展。因此，互联网时代，传统媒体要聚焦新闻舆论工作需要，重视与社会各节点间的交往，将新闻事业真正嵌入社会关系网络中，不断为党的宣传思想文化事业的发展作出新贡献。

(The author is an associate professor at the School of Media and Arts, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications.)

（作者系南京邮电大学传媒与艺术学院副教授）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧